The present invention relates generally to wheels. Wheels are widely known and used in vehicles for transportation. It is believed that it is advisable to further improve these existing wheels and to provide wheels having superior qualities when compared with the existing wheels.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide a wheel which has a simpler mechanism of its rolling, reduces energy consumption, is completely ecologically clean, and also can use modern technology of elastic materials.
In keeping with these objects and with others which will become apparent hereinafter, one feature of present invention resides in a wheel which has a rigid rim with an elastic tire arranged on the rim and filled with a fluid so that when the wheel is loaded, a broad contact of an outer surface of the tire with a road surface is provided, or in other words a xe2x80x9cflatxe2x80x9d is permitted. While in known wheels the flat causes an additional resistance to rolling, in the wheel in accordance with the present invention this flat useful.
In accordance with the present invention, on the longitudinally increased area of support of the tire against a surface of a roadway, different pressures are generated and maintained at both sides of a vertical plane of symmetry of the wheel or its hub. The greater pressure inside the wheel pushes the wheel from the surface toward the side with the lower pressure, so as to create rolling away. Therefore, the method of rolling of a wheel which carries a load is connected with controlling of the deformation of a contact surface of the wheel with the roadway.
A local pressure increase on the wheel surface can be generated in a desired location and at a desired moment by a force or a force pulse from a drive in the wheel. The drive uses a restoring deformation of the elastic tire on the rim of the wheel at the point of contact with the roadway, in order to obtain a reaction push of the road and therefore a movement moment.
In order to obtain the force and the pulse for such a drive, pneumatic, aerostatic, aerodynamic, hydrostatic, hydrodynamic, electromagnetic, electromechanical, mechanical superconductive, and other elements and processes can be used.